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WorkSafeBC plans to probe troubled West Vancouver police department

Agency has the mandate to investigate workplace bullying in B.C.

WorkSafeBC will send an inspector into West Vancouver Police Department to scrutinize the force’s anti-bullying policies.

Photograph by: PNG
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Bolstered by its new mandate to curb workplace bullying across the province, WorkSafeBC is heading to the West Vancouver Police Department to investigate allegations of harassment and racism.

Media coverage involving the sudden retirement announcement of Chief Const. Peter Lepine Monday amid “critical” levels of staff morale at the department has also prompted separate reviews from both the mayor of the district and the provincial government.

Now, WorkSafeBC will send an inspector into one of Canada’s richest municipalities to look into the allegations and scrutinize the force’s anti-bullying policies, according to spokesman Scott McCloy.

“We have received no issues from the West Vancouver Police ... However, this issue has caught our attention and, with an abundance of caution, we will send an officer in the near future to conduct an inspection,” McCloy said. “The background is: there’s growing evidence that exposure to bullying and harassment in (any) workplace has serious negative outcomes.

“We will go and follow up and try to determine if they have those proper procedures in place.”

Since its new bullying and harassment legislation became enforceable last November, WorkSafeBC’s prevention officers have been heading out into the field to make sure employers have strict anti-bullying policies, reporting and complaints procedures, training opportunities as well as records of such cases.

McCloy said a WorkSafe officer will tour the police department and “has the right to speak to anyone they wish.”

The agency has previously accepted claims where employees were berated publicly by supervisors, where employees ganged up on a worker with taunts and where employees were subjected to sexual or racial taunts, either at the hands of co-workers or customers. McCloy said any officers with workplace problems can report their complaints to WorkSafe through its anonymous online tool or its phone line.

Neither Lepine nor Mayor Michael Smith had comments on the investigations Tuesday, but Smith told reporters Monday that police who fear retribution for speaking up against bullying can bring their concerns directly to the mayor.

Former police chief Kash Heed, who served as Lepine’s predecessor from 2007 to 2009, said police members may be loathe to speak up without a whistle-blowing policy in place at either the department or the district.

After recent calls from active officers scared of speaking up against bullying, Heed said “all indications are: there will be retribution against people that come forward with these types of complaints.”

He said such a policy works in “credible” organizations such as the Vancouver Police Department, which allows officers to confidentially contact an independent lawyer about complaints involving their superiors or coworkers.

Any workplace complaints by B.C.’s municipal police officers are handled internally by their own departments. The Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner must be notified about each case, due to changes in the Police Act in 2010. In the past 3½ years, the OPCC has reviewed 22 West Vancouver cases, according to deputy police complaint commissioner Rollie Woods.

Woods said the OPCC doesn’t “have any real jurisdiction” over these internal investigations by individual departments.

“All they do is report them to us for statistical purposes and we just confirm that they’re dealt with appropriately as internal discipline,” Woods said.

He added that the only time the OPCC will refer such a case for further investigation is if it involves the public somehow, like the case of Const. Lisa Alford, who was convicted of impaired driving in 2005 after drinking with her superiors at the West Vancouver police station.

Woods helped investigate that case while working for the VPD and said many questions were raised at the time over how senior West Vancouver officers mishandled their own internal investigation into Alford’s conduct.

“The only people that have changed who were in here are the Chief Constable and two of the senior officers,” Woods said. “I’m not blaming any senior officers, or anything like that, I’m just saying: ‘What has changed in the organization other than the chief constable?’

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